Humor in the Day

Ugh, the doldrums of winter. Everyone I talk to seems a little depressed. Peter has started his yearly rants of,

"Why do we live here, we're moving to ______," after which he goes and researches real estate in Hawaii or Nepal or somewhere less arctic.

I feel like I'm constantly drinking coffee or eating to stay energized. The coffee is now being weaned away, but that made the snacking worse. Argh!

Busy is somewhat slow compared to November and December so my drive to make books is down.

My "new business venture" has me excited but that too is a warm weather affair.

Out on a walk today I decided all these doldrums were telling me to refocus on the present and the amusing things that happen each day. Do you ever just find yourself in a situation where you think,

"How the hell did I get to be doing this?"

Well, that happens to me pretty often. I remember once feeling so strongly of that emotion when we were sharecropping at Food Farm in Wrenshall, MN. We were in an old van, about 5 of us, out finding smallish birch trees to cut down to be used for tomato trellising. We were cutting them down, throwing them in the van, then hanging on for dear life while the van tore around the countryside. I was hanging on to the back of the van, the back doors were off or open and I was standing on the back bumper. All of a sudden I couldn't stop laughing at my predicament. Oh, the joy of laughing at one's self.

Today it happened on that walk I mentioned. It was a balmy 20 and partly sunny, so I wanted to get outside. It took a good 40 minutes to get ready. His snowpants and boots were in the car, the sled was buried in a snowdrift (now ice) which was hard to find and harder to defrost, etc. etc. etc. Finally, I loaded fredrik into the backpack since the sled was just not suitable, I put a pair of my mittens on him since in the time it took me to find and then abandon the sled he had wet two pairs of mittens. So there we were, booking it down the sidewalks, snowflakes fluttering, sun shining, dog on his bright red leash, mukluks kicking the powdery snow, fgh nodding off, my rhythm was good, it even felt like exercise. Then, whoops, I almost fell, not on ice but on my mukluks, one of the leather ties had come undone and somehow whipped around and tied to the other mukluk's lace. Crazy! I bent down to untie them, fgh's mitten fell off, I tried to put it back on while he was on my back and asleep, that didn't work so I had to take him off not realizing to do this I dropped the leash. So there I am, messed up shoes, boy trying to sleep in the snowy sidewalk, dog running into the street. Thankfully our dog is well over the hill and not up for any crazy adventures. He just waited for me to suit up and we were on our way.

I like this picture because it sums up our house. Plastic pig, red socks, crooked picture, random tool in hand.